"Out of the few that were checked, they all appear to be on different IPs, which rules out [an] easy shared hosting exploit, but still doesn’t rule out the possibility of this being done by a common exploit in the sites' front end software," Cyber War News reports.

"The attacker claims there are 'various reasons' why the sites were hacked," writes Softpedia's Eduard Kovacs. "'Dear Admin: Your website has been hacked for various reasons. We at Anonymous Pakistan believe in free-awareness. We hack for a reason. Do not forget us, for we will be back. We are Anonymous Pakistan. Remember us,' the hacker wrote on the defaced sites."